


Not With a Bang but a Whimper

by FoxQuill (notoneforreality)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, T.S.Elliot, after the war, forgiving ourselves is always harder, learning to cope, learning to forgive, learning to understand, muggle poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 12:57:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9124783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notoneforreality/pseuds/FoxQuill
Summary: Luna sat next to a girl slowly crumbling for an entire year and never noticed. She never quite forgave herself, either.  It’s not until she finds a book of muggle poetry thirteen years later that she almost understands.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [loony: in defense of luna lovegood](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2802287) by [dirgewithoutmusic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirgewithoutmusic/pseuds/dirgewithoutmusic). 



It's not until she finds a book of muggle poetry thirteen years later that she almost understands. She picks it up in Central America, where Rolf wants to study a new native species that had been discovered a couple of years previously. The lady says that the author used to be from round here and Luna shrugs and buys it. She hasn't read poetry in a long time, but she used to like it. A few poems in, she has her revelation. The poem is called The Hollow Men and she doesn't understand all of it but she understands the feeling and when she reaches the last block of text, she understands something that she didn't when she was twelve. 

> _This is the way the world ends_  
> 
> _This is the way the world ends_  
> 
> _This is the way the world ends_  
> 
> _Not with a bang but a whimper._  

Luna learnt to stop wishing for the past when she was nine years old, but she remembers it always, and she remembers a firework of a charms partner who slowly fizzled out over the year. She remembers the words written in blood and the refusal of the teachers to give any information, but she also remembers seeing the Weasleys all huddled together as they followed Professor McGonagall. She remembers wondering how she could have missed something so colossal as the complete implosion of a person who has nowhere to escape to.  

Thirteen years later, Luna thinks she almost understands. There was no roar and crash of rockfall in the new hollowness of Ginny's frame. There was no booming avalanche in the shadows under her eyes that deepened every night. There was no earth shattering shriek as the girl's earth shattered inside her. Luna knows Ginny is red. Red for her hair, red for her robes, red for the first sparks in the first lesson, red for blood, red for brave. 

> _Not with a bang but a whimper._  

Luna floos back to London the next day and leaves Rolf with his winged creatures so she can find the door that Ginny lives behind. The door is red like the girl it shelters, but not quite like the boy. (Harry, Luna decided in her third year, was gold. Gold for power, gold for responsibility, gold for hope, gold for strong, gold for leader). When Ginny opens it, Luna has so many things to say but she just smiles instead because it was thirteen years ago and Ginny doesn't blame Luna for missing the end of the world so Luna pretends she felt homesick and they sit together over tea. 

Luna whispers sorry to the bricks outside when she leaves. She whispers scraps of protection from nargles and wrackspurts and hopes that Ginny will always go out with a bang because she remembers a little red girl built from explosions and knows that fire doesn't always roar.


End file.
